Pasta and pizza hog the most attention, but an equally deserving Italian staple is finally getting its due.

Polenta — a creamy, versatile gruel with humble origins — has risen in the past decade from obscurity to a regular on grocery shelves and on menus nationwide.

“It’s an ancient food created by Italian peasants, and we love it at the restaurant. It’s rich, creamy and goes with about anything,” said Cullen Campbell, chef-owner at Crudo in Phoenix’s Arcadia area. “It’s as Italian as pasta, and just as versatile and, in some ways, better.”

Polenta was first made from wild grains, then from wheat, faro, millet, spelt or chickpeas. Today polenta is almost always made from cornmeal and slow-simmered into a mush. The better the cornmeal, the better the polenta.

Campbell prefers the handcrafted polenta made by Hayden Flour Mills, a Phoenix company that’s reviving the tradition of stone-ground grains started more than 125 years ago by Charles Hayden at his Tempe mill.

Hayden Mills makes its polenta from hard flint corn. First, it’s cracked in a stone mill into cornmeal with the texture of sea salt. Next, workers sift the cornmeal, hand-plucking the glassy bits of the corn’s outer layer from the mixture.

“Polenta is an Old World process, and when made right, it is a lot of tedious work,” said Emma Zimmerman, co-owner of Hayden Mills. “But the result is a polenta rich in corn flavor. It’s worth the time.”

There are no shortcuts to turning the grain into polenta. It takes nearly an hour and lots of stirring, but anyone with a pot and patience can learn to make polenta.

Like pasta, polenta is prized for its chameleonlike qualities. Serve simply with a dollop of butter or olive oil as a healthy side dish. Polenta is an excellent source of iron, magnesium, phosphorus, zinc and vitamin B6.

Or turn polenta into a decadent meal by topping with shaved truffles and serving with osso buco. There’s little this mushy corn dish does not go well with, from roasted root vegetables and sauteed shrimp to grilled sausage and onions. Leftover chicken? Dice, reheat and top over warm polenta.

Campbell recently turned polenta into an Italian version of a Southern hoecake. Polenta also can be cooked, cooled, patted into squares and sauteed, baked or grilled.

“Polenta is a blank canvas that can be turned into satisfying meals all year long,” Campbell said. “Once you get the hang of cooking it, anything’s possible.”

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